


though I could never tell why

by Watermelon Wolves (Phnx)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, HP: EWE, M/M, Paperwork, Potions Accident, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5790835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phnx/pseuds/Watermelon%20Wolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His head felt odd, like he was experiencing vertigo while lying down, and he had the strange impression of dreams echoing just under his conscious thoughts, even though he would swear that he was wide awake.</p><p>Malfoy. This was all Malfoy’s fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sir, you are sad!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suica/gifts).



> Based on a prompt from [RogueMarieL](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueMarieL). I don't even know. Warnings for weird/tropey soul-bonds, butchered HMS Pinafore quotes, and severe Misuse of Latin.

With a relieved sigh, Harry placed the final form onto the towering stack of parchment ready to be filed. It had taken two all-nighters, but he’d finally completed his term-long backlog of performance reviews for his auror trainees.

Now he only needed to do the letters of recommendation, argh argh argh.

Still, surely all that paperwork deserved a quick break.

He was just contemplating the sunrise while attempting to navigate his stir-stick around the mountain of sugarcubes he’d dropped into last-night’s reheated tea, when his door burst open to admit the enraged head of the Department for Non-Human Resources in a flurry of black robes and fuzzy brown hair. The Confundus Charm cast on her robes made it difficult to focus on her for too long, but Harry felt that it was only polite to make the effort.

“And can you believe that the Wizengamot dismissed my motion for equal employment opportunities?” she stormed by way of greeting. “It’s like they don’t care at all about the wellbeing of their citizens!”

This scene, or something fairly similar, happened on average twice a day during the times the Wizengamot was in session, and Harry, secure in both the familiarity of the event and the fact that he really had voted to pass the motion--anonymous ballots were no barrier for the determined petitioner, apparently--nodded in commiseration. “Yes, dreadful, isn’t it? Tea?”

The department head patted her flat stomach pointedly. “No, thank you, I’m off caffeine until the baby’s on solids. What were the grounds for the motion’s dismissal?”

“Are you pregnant? Congrats! Though you could have mentioned.” The last was said rather coolly, as Harry was of the opinion that _some_ unnamed people were getting too distracted by their busy work schedules to update their _very dear_ friends as often as they should.

“No, but we’ve decided to try, so really I could be any day now. The dismissal?”

Harry decided that the sugar was as dissolved as it was going to get and returned to his desk chair, unrolling the first of the scrolls designed for his recommendations and frowning down at it. “Oh, the usual. Concern that it would infringe on the rights of small-business owners, or something. A lot of frowning over the third subheading, I think. You might revise the wording there a bit.”

“I’ll go over it again. Was there much support for the motion in general? Do you think that with some adjustment of the details, there’s a chance it could be passed?”

Harry was of the private opinion that it would take a full-scale revolution for the wizarding world to reconsider their non-human labour policies, but he kept that to himself for now. No doubt she was fully prepared to start a departmental civil war, and she would certainly expect Harry to take point if she did. Unfortunately for her, Harry was currently buried in personnel files and was therefore firmly unwilling to engage in any kind of war until Friday at the earliest. “A bit, perhaps,” he allowed carefully. “It’ll take some time for the Wizengamot to get used to the idea, first. How do you spell ‘heterodox’?”

“It’s written as it sounds. What are you working on, anyway?” The department head blinked, finally taking stock of the state of the room, the rising sun beating its way through the smog outside the window, and Harry’s wrinkled robes and shadowed eyes. “Oh, Harry. You haven’t been here all night, have you?”

Harry yawned pitably. “I need to finish these letters so that they can be reviewed and sent off by the end of the week.”

The department head flipped through some of the forms stacked on Harry’s desk, sighing. “Well, I suppose I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to-- _Harry._ ”

Harry froze. He’d been taught to be wary of that tone back in his first year at Hogwarts. “...Yes?”

“These performance reviews are for the first week of term! Don’t tell me that you only just filled them out!”

Harry winced. “Well, I got a little bogged down in the beginning, and so--”

“You told me you’d finished them! You promised me that you’d been keeping up with your paperwork this time around!”

“I--well, that is to say, I--”

“ _Harry!_ ”

Harry gave up. “Yes, I’m a terrible person for putting it off until now and misleading you about it, I’m very sorry about it, but they still have to get done.”

The department head sniffed. “I expect so.” She turned to leave, but paused at the door. “We’re working on plans for the nursery. You should come over this weekend, once you’ve finished all this. Someone needs to convince Ron that he can’t paint the whole thing orange.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, ‘Mione.” He received a quick smile before the door closed behind her.

Harry sighed and turned back to his letters miserably.

Harry usually loved his job. He’d grown tired of traditional Auror work barely a year after he’d begun his career, but he’d found that he had a real passion for teaching it that had yet to fade. But with the joys of a wonderful job came the monotony of the paperwork. He did try to keep on top of it, but he always found himself putting it off once, and then twice, and then he decided he’d just catch up on the weekend, but then the weekend came and he was just exhausted, and then he found himself here, at the end of term, doing the entire six-month course’s paperwork in one short week.

Harry picked up his quill, glanced at the name at the top of the form, and got back to work.

\---

_...has great accuracy in spell responses and aim, but she needs to work on her reflexive response time._

\---

_...thorough knowledge of curses and countercurses…_

\---

_...has trouble maintaining animagus form…_

\---

_...he has the tendency to turn magenta when startled…_

\---

“Potter, do you have a minute?”

Harry frowned blearily at the figure in the doorway, trying to make out who it might be. If only the person would stay in one spot and stop multiplying and combining every time he blinked.

“Merlin, you look terrible. Paperwork kept you up?”

“Er… yeah. Yes.”

“Making good headway, though?”

Harry looked at the pile of finished letters, and then at the pile of yet-to-be-completed letters. They were roughly the same size. “...Yes?”

“Excellent, excellent. Mind if I sit down?”

“Please.” Harry rubbed his eyes, trying to suppress a yawn. “Sorry, sir--what time is it?”

“Just about lunch time. Now, Potter, I know you’ve officially handed off the trainees to Jones, but she’s out sick today, and I’ve just had an owl from a shop in Diagon Alley about some minor disturbance or another--perfect for a group of trainees to handle, very low risk. But they need a senior Auror to accompany them, and we’re so short-staffed right now…”

_Just how am I a senior Auror?_ Harry wondered grumpily. “Yes, sir, of course, I understand, but I’ve still got quite a bit to do before--”

“I’m so glad you agree, Potter! You’ll meet the trainees down by Floo No. 8 at half twelve. It’s all very standard--I’m sure you’ll be back by one. Good luck!”

“...Thank you, sir,” Harry said to the man’s retreating back. He looked down at his desk, closed his eyes, and let himself slump forward. When he peered up at the clock, the **How’s Your Day?** hand slid from **Miserable** to **Collapse Imminent.**

“Thanks for that,” he told it. He turned cautiously to his other clock, a gift from Luna that he’d tucked into a corner of his bookshelf, out of view from the guest chairs often used by impressionable trainees. The single hand on that clock had moved from its customary position between **STEP WITH CAUTION!!** and **HOLD--MONSTERS!!** all the way over to **DARE TO LOVE!!** 1

So at least there was that.

\---

Harry believed that the best way to teach was to delegate all the tasks and stick around to make sure nothing blew up. Besides, these kids had finished the training program. They were ready to do this on their own. He gestured to the trainees to huddle around him beside their assigned Floo. “Alright, Derniere2 and Laaste, I want you to handle the interviews; Letzete and Akhar, you two examine the scene for evidence, and Deiridh, you take photos and records. Ready? Let’s go.”

Whoever had assigned Harry this task had been right--this should all be very standard, and if Harry weren’t two days behind on sleep and watching his deadline approaching at a sprint, he’d probably be relieved for the break. As it was, he could barely keep his eyes open.

“Practical Potions,” he said, stepping forward as the green flames rose up around him.

Good thing it was an easy job, he thought.

Of course, that was right around the time he toppled over, unconscious. At least he’d managed to close off the floo, first.

\---

When Harry blinked his eyes open, the room around him was in chaos, and not just because of the way it seemed to be rapidly spinning.

“Mr. Potter? Mr. Potter? Sir? Can you hear me, sir?” Deiridh’s pale face swam in and out of view as Harry’s eyes tried desperately to focus. “Madame Bones! I think he’s awake!”

“Hold tight, Harry,” came another voice, right before--

“Ow!”

“Sorry, did that sting? How many Miss Deiridhs are you seeing at the moment, Harry?”

Harry winced his eyes back open, but to his relief, the objects around him seemed to have solidified. “Just the one. Thanks, Susan. Deiridh, what happened? I was just stepping through the Floo…”

“Yes, sir. You entered Floo No. 8 at approximately 12:40, sir, having spoken the destination of ‘Practical Potions.’ Trainee Derniere was about to enter behind you when the Floo turned turquoise, sir, which we all identified as the code for ‘summon medical assistance,’ sir. Examination of the spells in question confirmed both that the shop had been placed under a quarantine charm, and also that you’d been the one to cast the spells, sir. At that point, Trainee Derniere and the others flooed in through a neighbouring shop while I went to St. Mungo’s, sir. When the mediwizards were able to lift the quarantine charm, we found you and Mr. Malfoy unconscious, sir. The shop was otherwise abandoned, sir.”

Harry’s head was definitely not in a state fit to handle Deiridh’s precise style of reporting, but he was able to key on to the important bits, which consisted primarily of, “Me and _who?_ ”

\---

His head felt odd, like he was experiencing vertigo while lying down, and he had the strange impression of dreams echoing just under his conscious thoughts, even though he would swear that he was wide awake.

Malfoy. This was all Malfoy’s fault.

Harry scowled over at the blond head resting on the bed next to him. They were the only patients in the ward, and would remain so until someone figured out what had caused whatever had happened to them. Apparently, no one wanted to risk suffering through a spontaneous manifestation of _animas miscere_. 3 Harry would be a lot more understanding if only someone would explain to him exactly what that was.

The door to the ward opened cautiously, and two figures entered the room so thoroughly bespelled with countercharms and protection spells that Harry had to squint to look at them. “Harry!”

“Hey.” Harry smiled weakly at them. It was like being back in school again.

Harry noted with some relief that the head of the Department of Non-Human Resources had left her official robes behind and transformed back into Hermione, Confundus Charm-free. “How are you holding up?” she asked, studying his face in concern.

“Well enough, I guess,” he shrugged. “Don’t really understand what the fuss is all about.”

Ron made a disgusted face from behind Hermione, but she either had eyes in the back of her head or simply knew him well enough to guess what he was doing, because her elbow shot out to jab him in the ribs almost immediately. “We just want you to know that, well, as long as _you’re_ happy, _we’re_ happy, too, Harry,” Hermione told him earnestly. There was a brief moment of silence before Hermione’s elbow shot out again. “Ron!”

Ron grunted and slouched down uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he managed.

“Er… thanks.” Harry looked back and forth between the two of them, frowning.

“No matter whom you choose to spend your life with,” Hermione continued, “we’re with you 100%. You do know that, don’t you?”

“Right, of course… Er… Is this about Ginny?” Harry thought they’d left that mess behind years ago.

Ron’s scowl deepened and his ears turned red. Hermione hesitated. “Not… exactly.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of Malfoy’s bed. “Has… has he woken up, yet?”

“No, the prat has been out the whole time. Longer exposure time, maybe?”

“No,” replied Hermione absently, shaking her head. “The exposure occurred simultaneously.”

Harry started. This was the first he’d heard about that. “How is that even possible? There was almost an hour between the time we received the incident report and the time I stepped into the shop. Malfoy should have been exposed to the hazardous whatever for at least that long.”

“Er. Yes. Well. Obviously. But he was likely unaffected until you arrived.”

“That makes no sense. What do I have to do with anything?”

“You were the last component to the spell, obviously!”

“What does that even mean?”

As Hermione opened her mouth to finally answer, however, Malfoy began to stir. The three of them fell silent, watching as Malfoy made a face and gingerly opened first one eye, and then, when nothing terrible occurred in consequence, the other.

When his eyes fell on Harry, Ron, and Hermione all staring at him, a pang of panic and confusion washed through Harry, gone as quickly as it arrived. Meanwhile, Malfoy was groaning theatrically. “Am I in hell?” he asked the hospital ceiling plaintively.

Ron sniggered. “If you are, then you’d better be prepared to make a permanent home there, Malfoy.” For the first time since he’d stepped into the room, Ron looked moderately cheerful.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ron. I spoke with Madame Bones earlier, and she was very confident that the _animas miscere_ can be severed completely, even before we find the catalyst.”

Malfoy smirked meanly at the two of them. _Jealousy, surprise, confusion_. “What’s wrong, Weasley? Make a commitment you couldn’t be bothered to keep?”

Ron gave him a wide smile. “Nope. But you did.”

_Fear, confusion._

“Could someone please just tell me what this _animas miscere_ spell is?” Harry whinged, looking from face to face. “My head is killing me, and all of these vague hints aren’t helping.”

At the reminder that Harry was involved in this too, Ron’s smugness faded, and he shot Harry an apologetic look. Hermione was still looking thoughtful, and Malfoy… Malfoy had gone as pale as his white hospital sheets. If Harry didn’t know better, he’d think the surge of terror had come from Malfoy, not him.

“You…” Malfoy croaked. “You can’t mean…”

Hermione sighed. “There was some sort of physical dispute in your shop at approximately 11:30 this morning, correct? This involved a number of your more sensitive potions combining. You called in the incident to the aurors at 11:49, identifying it as a minor disturbance. The aurors--that is, Harry--arrived on the scene at around 12:40. When he did, a potion or some combination of potions acted as a catalyst for a spontaneous--”

Malfoy was moaning into his hands. “No, no, no.”

“--manifestation of the _animas miscere_ charm.” Hermione turned to Harry. “Think of it as a sort of soul bond.”

“A _what_?!”

“That’s not possible,” Malfoy insisted. “None of my potions had anything like the characteristics needed to bring on this sort of manifestation, and even if they had, it wouldn’t have been enough. There has to be some basis already in place for the--” Malfoy stopped abruptly. _Fear, panic._ “Er.”

“Yes, quite,” replied Hermione smugly.

“So a fully spontaneous, baseless manifestation, eh?” Malfoy said brightly, backtracking magnificently. _Panic._ “That’s certainly new. I expect you’ll want a complete inventory of the potions and ingredients I had stored?”

“Yes, as soon as you’re able to provide it.”

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Harry interrupted. “What do you mean there needs to be a basis for this soul bond thing? What kind of basis? You can’t mean an… _emotional_ one, because _I_ certainly don’t--”

“Why are you giving me that look? You can’t think that _I_... for _you_? Urgh.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You do not need to be passionately in love for the bond to form, no.”

Harry relaxed slightly, and felt Malfoy do the same. Of course, he obviously wasn’t secretly in love with Malfoy; the very idea was ludicrous. He hated Malfoy, after all. But still, he’d read enough romance novels during and following the time he’d spent dating Ginny to be cognizant of just how precarious the school-yard variety of hatred really was, and how easily it might devolve into hate-sex-love if one wasn’t constantly keeping oneself in check.

“You simply need a sort of… potential.”

Harry stiffened again. “Potential? No potential here! Our hatred is totally platonic.”

Over on the other bed, Malfoy was nodding enthusiastically. “We are definitely the last two people in the world who might progress from hateful rivals to angry-yet-passionate love-making,” he agreed.

“Or who might find their hatred slowly softening into love when they’re forced to acknowledge one another’s good points during a series of life-threatening events,” Harry continued.

Malfoy nodded knowingly. “Or who might be _pretending_ to hate each other because of the differences in their stations, but who actually engage in midnight rendezvous to profess their love for one another in a number of drawn-out, rather tame sex scenes.”

“Right? Weird when sex scenes are the most tedious bits in the books. I hated how that one ended, anyway. The Baron could easily have found a way around the terms in the will.” Harry looked to Hermione for back-up, only to find her and Ron staring at him, expressions halfway between incredulous and amused.

Hermione cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that I don’t think I’ve read that one,” she admitted, lips twitching.

_Embarrassment, nervousness._

Harry glanced at Malfoy, feeling himself redden. “Well, we obviously haven’t read these books either,” Malfoy said quickly. “One just hears about this sort of thing… around.”

“Of course,” Hermione agreed, rolling her eyes. “Regardless, sexual attraction is by no means requisite for a soul bond. They have been known manifest between siblings, for example, or exceptionally close friends.”

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Malfoy breathed. Harry felt a tiny twinge of disappointment, and quickly smashed it down.

“The potential required is that for a particularly deep connection. Individuals who have shared some sort of similar life-affecting experiences, for example, and who display similar natural talents and magical power levels, are considered to have a certain amount of potential toward forming some sort of bond.”

Harry frowned. “Er… In that case, don’t a lot of people share strong potential?”

“Not as many as you might think, interestingly enough. We don’t entirely understand what causes spontaneous manifestations--that is, manifestations that occur without careful preparation and intent--but they are rather rare.”

_Nervousness._

“But… you said you can fix it, right?”

“Oh, yes! The inventory?”

Malfoy started. “Right, have you got a quill? Of course you do, what am I saying…”

Once again, Harry felt that strange rash of disappointment. As Malfoy began dictating to Hermione, Harry turned to find Ron watching him. Ron made a face, but he leaned forward as closely as the quarantine spells would allow him and whispered, “We meant what we said before, Harry. As long as you’re happy…”

Harry felt himself turn bright red. “Er… That’s not necessary, but thanks.”

Ron shrugged. “Whatever you say, mate.”

\---

Three hours later, Harry was back to staring down at his parchment-covered desk, glumly working on the letters of recommendation. He was still feeling disorientated; he hadn’t even realised how many emotions he and Malfoy must have been sharing until they suddenly disappeared. Everything felt so quiet, even though he wasn’t any different than he’d been just that morning.

Malfoy was still back at the hospital, working with Hermione to discover exactly what the catalyst had been, but Harry had been shooed out the doors almost as soon as the bond had been severed.

“Mind you keep those personal quarantine spells up, dear,” an elderly mediwitch had told him gently as she pressed a card into his hands. “It’s from all of us here at the hospital.” The card read, “ **Our condolences on the hour of this unhappy ending** ,” and it had an image of a little cartoon Harry sobbing while clutching a huge red heart symbol which had evidently been sawed in half, complete with jagged edges. At regular intervals, the little cartoon would pause to scrub at his eyes before collapsing back into tears.

Harry had stared at it for a long moment before he finally managed to say, “You had it personalised. How sweet of you.”

The card was now sitting on his bookshelf next to Luna’s clock, whose hand had ticked on to **SORRY HIS LOT WHO LOVES TOO WELL!!**.

“Everything is terrible,” he agreed, dipping his quill into his official fuchsia-coloured ink, “but not quite that bad, thanks.”

It was past eleven when he placed the final scroll on the tottering pile of completed forms. He stood up, yawning as he did so, and stumbled through the floo back to his flat and straight into bed.

**SIR, YOU ARE SAD!!** the clock, a twin of the one from Luna that he kept in his office, announced.

“Wrong again,” he told it, and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 All of Luna’s clocks’ sayings are snatched, doctored in at least one case, and used horribly out of context in all cases, from Gilbert and Sullivan’s libretti (all but one from HMS Pinafore).
> 
> 2 All of the trainees’ names were adopted from various languages’ words for “last,” as provided by Google Translate. How this coincidence occurred, no one can say, but they’ve been trying to get Ultima and Saigo on their team for _ages_.
> 
> 3 Harry could perhaps be forgiven for not recognising the importance of this spell, as the only connection he could really make was to a brand of wizard’s cologne (for wizards for _their_ wizards), _Animus Masculus_.


	2. O joy, o rapture unforeseen!

The next day dawned clear and beautiful, not that Harry was awake to see it. Freed from both trainees and paperwork, he had decided to take the morning off. He slept in, had a large breakfast, and only headed off to work when Luna’s clock was beginning to annoy him. The twinge of emptiness that had accompanied him ever since the briefly-held bond had been severed was gone, leaving behind a pleasant thrum of contentment.

He floo’d directly into his office, lunch in hand, ready to laze the day away, and instead found Hermione and Malfoy bent over his desk, frowning.

“Er,” he said.

“Harry!” Hermione straightened up, smiling at him. She wasn’t in her Department of Non-Human Resources robes, so she must not be here for her job. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. You managed to finish all the forms, even with everything that happened yesterday?”

“Yeah.” He let his eyes flicker back and forth between Malfoy and Hermione. “Everything alright?”

“Oh, yes! We were just having trouble finding a quiet place to work, what with Draco’s shop being roped off, and my office is--well. And then I remembered that you probably wouldn’t be in today, so I thought here would be perfect. It’s alright, isn’t it?”

Harry stared at her. “...Sure. Sorry, did you just say-- _Draco_?”

“That _is_ my name, _Harry_ ,” Malfoy smirked.

“I know your name, _Draco_ , I’m just working why Hermione was using it.”

“Harry,” Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Ron sometimes. Draco and I have been working together on developing different strains of potions that will help certain non-humans, such as vampires and werewolves, integrate more successfully into wizarding society. I’ve told you about this before.”

“Er.”

“ _Harry_.”

Malfoy was laughing at him. Harry made a face and tried to change the subject. “Any luck on what caused the bond thing?”

“We think that the major components were three of Draco’s specialty potions, one being a commercial love potion--”

“A perfectly legal one!”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Hermione agreed, rolling her eyes. She’d been doing that rather a lot, lately. Harry wondered if it was healthy. “So, a love potion, a calming draught, and a headache cure. All three are potions which affect an individual’s extended aura through--”

“Hang on, you doused me with a _love potion_ , Malfoy?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. So _that’s_ where Hermione had picked up that habit. “Yes, Potter, I was so desperate for you that I hatched a convoluted scheme to sneak you a love potion.”

While Harry squinted at Malfoy suspiciously, Hermione explained in a rather exasperated tone, “The reaction rendered the three potions to be inert, at least as far as their intended purposes are concerned. So no, you were not doused with a love potion, a calming draught--”

“Definitely not that one,” Malfoy muttered.

Hermione ignored him. “--Or a headache cure.”

“ _Really_ definitely not that one,” Harry groaned, rubbing at his temples. “So you know which potions… so you’re finished?”

“Not at all. It’s still quite a mystery as to exactly why they affected the two of you the way they did. Harry, Draco, if it’s alright, I’d like to run a few additional tests. It is such a rare occurrence--really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for study!”

“Er.” Harry glanced over at Malfoy, whose face was suspiciously blank. “Well--”

“Brilliant! Come stand over here, Harry, wonderful. Okay, I’m going to start with a few diagnostic charms.”

“Hermione--”

“Since the bond has already been completely severed, you shouldn’t even notice me doing anything.”

Watching Hermione flutter about the room, collecting scraps of parchment and muttering to herself, Harry found this unlikely.

“Alright,” Hermione told them, coming to a stop before them with her wand extended, but still not looking up from her notes, “We’ll start with the basics.”

Harry didn’t hear what Hermione said next. _Malfoy_ , he tried to think, but something about that word sounded wrongwrongwrong. _Draco_ , his body told him, _Draco_. He could feel the magic searing through him, could feel _Draco_ , every square millimetre of his body, every breath he took, every heartbeat. When Harry managed to turn his head, Draco’s wide grey eyes were staring at him, mouth partially open in shock.

“--Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Harry heard distantly, and suddenly his awareness snapped back into his own body and he found himself panting and shivering on the floor. Even as his mind cleared, he could still feel Draco gasping on the floor next to him, the sensations a twin to his own body’s, and leaps and bounds more powerful than the faint echos of emotions that had slid under his skin the day before. “How--I don’t understand--Are you alright?”

Draco was sitting up carefully, was reaching up with a shaking hand to brush his hair from his eyes, and Harry felt every silky strand of hair as though his own fingers were sliding through it. Harry experimentally ran his thumb across his own bristly cheekbone and watched-- _felt_ \--as a shiver ran down Draco’s spine.

“Hermione,” Harry said evenly, aware of the way his voice vibrated through his chest because _Draco_ was aware of it. “Tell me you didn’t just give us another soul bond.”

Hermione was shaking her head desperately, looking panicked. “It was just a diagnostic spell to examine the areas where the bond had been severed! It shouldn’t have--it doesn’t make any sense!”

“The bond wasn’t severed completely,” came Draco’s soft voice. “It registered your spell as a threat and built itself up in self-defense.”

“It was cut,” Harry insisted. “It felt--yesterday, it felt like it was gone.”

“And today?” asked Hermione.

Harry looked at Draco quickly, unsure. “I mean, I think so? I couldn’t--I wasn’t sharing bits of his feelings like I was yesterday before it was cut. But--”

“The empty feeling was gone,” Draco finished, looking back at him steadily.

“...Yeah.”

Hermione frowned at both of them in turn, her fretful concern fading before the much more pressing academic question. “Are we postulating, then, that the bond was formed yesterday, with the aid of several aura-altering potions, and then the bond was successfully severed two hours later, and then the bond _spontaneously regrew_ overnight?”

Harry and Draco continued staring at each other. “I suppose so,” said Harry finally. He stretched and felt Draco’s eyes skim down his form as he did so. He smirked. “Academic problem of the century, eh ‘Mione? Imagine all the papers you could write on this.”

Hermione, it was true, was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement, but Harry was more focused on the way Draco’s mouth had gone dry and his gaze had become rather vague.

Behind him, unseen by any in the room, the hand on Luna’s clock was now pointing to, **LOVE IS ALIVE!!**

\---

A quick trip back to St. Mungo’s confirmed the presence of the new soul bond, and everyone agreed that it would be a terrible idea to try to severe it again when they had no idea why it had returned in the first place. After a barrage of tests, Harry and Draco had slipped out of the hospital and settled into a booth at Fortescue’s, contemplating their misfortune aloud while trying to imply that they each were the worst off by the renewed bond.

“Well _that’s_ all very well, Harry,” Draco informed him loftily, ruining the effect by laughing into a spoonful of his elaborate sundae. Harry was rather gratified that he wasn’t the only one who’d suddenly found himself unable to maintain a surname-basis. Everytime he even _thought_ the word ‘Malfoy,’ the bond reacted violently, objecting to any sort of formality which might weaken the bond. “However, your term is already over anyway. Don’t pretend you were planning to do anything but loaf around until the next group of trainees come in. Meanwhile, _my_ business has been suffering horrendously at my needing to close shop for two days in a row. Really, I don’t know how I’ll recover.”

Harry snorted and tried a bit more of his ice cream. He’d opted for the cone in the hopes of tormenting Draco with his suggestive eating skills, which past attempts had shown to be nonexistent. Just this once, however, he seemed to be successfully flirtatious, based on the way Draco’s eyes zeroed in on his mouth and his heartbeat sped up every time Harry took a bite. Draco had retaliated by sucking obscenely on every spoonful, eventually letting the utensil go with a pop and then dipping down for more. Harry was counting this as a draw. “Honestly, Draco, just while we’ve been sitting here, five different people have come up to express their sincere apologies for the calamity you’ve undergone, and to profess their undying loyalty to your shop. I think you’ll be fine.” He took another lick of his ice cream, trying an experimental whorl with his tongue and grinning smugly at the punch of desire he felt from Draco. If he’d known it would be so easy to rile Draco up and win his undivided attention, he would have tried this flirting thing ages ago. Then Draco smirked and went for another spoonful, and Harry’s stomach dropped and his heart nearly exploded trying to keep up with his rushing blood. _Well-played, Draco,_ he thought. _Well-played_.

By the time Hermione caught back up with them, they’d retired to Harry’s office, where Draco was reviewing his potions and Harry was lazily going over some of his official correspondence while pausing frequently for tea and biscuits.

“...And I mean,” Harry was saying, pouring some steaming tea into his nicest work mug, “other than all the paperwork, I really do love my job. And it’s not like I have to wear Anonymous robes like Hermione does, just to go to work. Sugar?”

“Two, please. Why does she do that, anyway? I’ve never quite understood.”

“Well, the Department of Non-Human Resources isn’t exactly popular, is it?” Harry handed Draco his tea and got to work preparing his own. “Back when she founded it, it received loads of bad press, and she started getting Howler after Howler of hate-mail, really upsetting stuff, and when some of the threats started actually being followed through with, the Ministry finally locked the whole department up. You need a special pass just to remember that the department exists--I imagine yours is due to all that potions collaboration work, right?--and whenever she and her employees are on duty, they’ve all got to wear those Anonymous robes that are layered in so many Confundus Charms that you can’t even focus on them properly, or even easily come up with their actual name.”

“Not just Confundus Charms,” Draco agreed thoughtfully. “And the situation hasn’t gotten any better since the beginning?”

“Hard to say what people’d think now, isn’t it, what with the wizarding world’s first response to anything controversial always being to spell it into nonexistence.” That was perhaps said with more bitterness than their conversation called for, and Harry took a gulp of his too-hot tea in the hopes of distracting himself.

Draco frowned at him. “You don’t agree with the Secrecy Act?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I do. I mean, I of all people know how badly muggles can react to magic, even when it’s their own family who has it. It’s just that this seems to be how the Ministry responds to everything, lately. Cover it up! Pretend it never happened!”

“You’re talking about the war.” Draco was gripping his mug tightly, his posture stiff. “Pretending it never happened has done rather well for _me_. I’m able to go outside without being hexed, for one thing.”

“ _Bugger_ , I didn’t mean--I didn’t mean that, it’s just that it feels like nothing’s changed, for better or for worse. All these terrible things happened, all these people--all these people died, and it doesn’t even matter. Everyone still has the same opinions, the same arguments, the same rivalries that we all had from before the war.”

Draco met his eyes for a long moment. “Not everyone.” Harry felt his breath catch in his throat, before Draco looked away and took a delicate sip of tea, his shoulders relaxing. “Anyway,” Draco continued, “I disagree. There’s a different kind of dialogue, now. People are no longer arguing as to whether or not muggles and muggleborns should be burned out of existence, but rather about how best to integrate muggleborns into wizarding society. Now, the traditionalists are citing cultural degradation and trying to force muggleborns into years of supplementary schooling on wizarding culture, while the modernists are wondering loudly in their best philosophical tones if change is really all that bad.” Draco smiled a little, and Harry found he couldn’t look away. “So you see, even if we’re still fighting over the same issues we have been for centuries, that’s not to say that nothing’s changing. It seems to me that this fight, no matter which side one takes, is far preferable to the ones we were having ten years ago.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Hermione from the doorway. She looked rather smug. “Ready for some more tests, boys?”

\---

“As far as we’ve been able to determine, your bond is fully organic.”

Harry and Draco exchanged nervous glances to supplement the anxious twist they could both feel. “...Meaning what, Hermione?”

“Well, we believe that its structure is so basic, and its formation so natural, that no matter how many times we attempt to severe it, it will return in due course.”

“Er…”

“In fact, certain evidence has led us to conclude that the combination of aura-altering potions you were both subjected to did not, in fact, cause the bond to spontaneously form as we had previously believed--”

“But--”

“And instead simply reinforced a bond which was already present between the two of you.”

When Harry continued to stare at Hermione blankly, Draco leaned over to whisper helpfully into Harry’s ear, smirking as his warm breath caused Harry to shiver. “It’s like a mix between the one where they progress from hate to love via shared danger and the one with the midnight rendezvous, only without the lame sex or the dead Baron.”

Harry nodded, smiling slowly. “Good. I hated those parts.” He turned his head to press a lingering, chaste kiss to Draco’s lips, feeling a newly-familiar thrill echo through them both. “Well,” he said at last. “I guess that as long as it’s not _lame_ , we might as well give this thing a try. Since apparently our magic or souls or whatever are determined for us to be married.”

“Not _married_ , necessarily, as it needn’t be sexual--” Hermione tried, but Draco interrupted her.

“Lame? _Lame?_ ” he demanded in mock outrage. “I’ll show you _lame._ ”

As Draco leaned in again, Hermione backed out of the room hastily. “Right, well, I’ll be off, then!” she said brightly. “Harry, I’ll still see you this weekend, right?”

“Right, right,” Harry replied, not paying attention.

“And, of course, you’ll need to tell Ron about all this.” Hermione swept from the room, leaving behind a trail of mad giggles. Draco, still poised just a breath away from kissing Harry senseless, collapsed into laughter when he saw Harry’s ashen face.

\---

Harry needn’t have worried, though. Hermione had, of course, kept Ron up-to-date, and Ron had been prepared enough for this eventuality to glean the necessary information from her rather long-winded and technical ramblings.

Besides, Ron was a true friend.

“Ron, I--”

“Please, mate, spare me the details.”

“...Fair enough.”

And that was that.

\---Epilogue---

“Potter! Glad to have caught you.”

Harry turned from securing his desk with the standard locking spells and saw the same man who’d assigned him to accompany the trainees to Practical Potions standing in his office doorway. “Good evening, sir. I was just on my way out…” He was rather eager to see this man on his way, as he and Draco were preparing for their first date as a married couple (or ever, really). They had both dismissed Hermione’s insistence that their bond did not actually equate to marriage--firstly, because she was the only person who seemed to think that, and secondly, because they both felt oddly content with the idea that destiny had brought them together, at least to the point of waiting to see where else destiny would lead them. Besides, unlike their inspirational romance novels, the sex _really_ wasn’t lame.

“Yes, of course, I shan’t keep you. I’ve just come to drop off the paperwork.” With a flick of his wand, the man deposited an overwhelming number of scrolls on Harry’s desk. “Well, I’ll be off, then. I expect you’ll have those finished by the end of hours tomorrow.”

Harry stared at his formerly-pristine desk, mouth open. He cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

After the man had disappeared again, Harry stepped forward tentatively and poked around at the pile, trying to discern what the scrolls were even for. He’d finished all his paperwork for the term, after all…

The papers appeared to be divided into three categories. The first was a truly comprehensive collection of forms pertaining to the marriage of one Harry Potter to one Draco Malfoy; the second, a rather depressing set of annulment papers involving the same two gentlemen; the third consisted of some very confusing marriage renewal forms.

Harry stared at the forms for a while longer, before shrugging and packing them all into his workbag with a wave of his wand. After all, if he took them home, he could make Draco do at least half.

As he walked toward the floo, he caught a glance of Luna’s clock. It read, **OH JOY, OH RAPTURE UNFORESEEN!!**

“Okay,” he told it. “I guess I’ll give you that one."

\--END--


End file.
